Karinya Indian Swamp Cultivation in the Venezuelan Llanos

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Karinya Indian Swamp Cultivation in the Venezuelan Llanos William M. Denevan and Roland W. Bergman* A s students of traditional systems of tropical agriculture, we _£\ have been impressed by the absence today of permanent methods of cultivation in the lowland tropics of the New World in contrast to the Old World tropics where there is a great diversity of intensive systems, often on very marginal land. We are now fairly well convinced that the preeminence of shifting cultivation in contemporary tropical Middle and South America reflects the lack of population pressure and the consequent availability of vast, mostly unoccupied, forested lands. However, the pre-Columbian situation in many tropical areas was quite different, as is evidenced by apparently dense populations1 and by numerous relic fields, including terraces in the eastern Andes and Yucatán and ridged fields in poorly drained savannas.2 It is likely that various other forms of intensive tropical agriculture once existed which were given up following massive depopulation, leaving no visible remains. * Dr. Denevan is Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin , Madison 53706, and Dr. Bergman is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, West Virginia 25443. This paper was presented in the Carl O. Sauer Golden Jubilee Session of the 1973 meeting of the Association in San Diego. Field work in Venezuela was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (No. GS 30118). 1 William M. Denevan, "The Aboriginal Population of Tropical America: Problems and Methods of Estimation," in Paul Deprez, ed., Population and Economics (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1970), pp. 251-269. 2 William H. Isabel, "New Discoveries in the Montaña of Southeastern Peru," Archaeology, 21 (1968), pp. 108-115; B. L. Turner, II, "Prehistoric Intensive Agriculture in the Mayan Lowlands," Science, 185 (1974), pp. 118-124; William M. Denevan, "Aboriginal Drained-Field Cultivation in the Americas," Science, 169 (1970), pp. 647-654. 23 24 ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS In recent years field workers have been on the watch for survivals of such systems. One of the most impressive yet discovered is the swamp drainage agriculture of the Karinya Indians in the eastern Llanos in Venezuela, examined by the authors in the spring of 1972. The Karinya are a Carib Indian tribe numbering about 4,000, now widely dispersed in about 30 communities mostly located in the Mesas Orientales region north of the Orinoco River (Figure 1). The Karinya have been in continuous contact with Western culture for several hundred years, with the greatest acculturation occurring in the past 40 years due to the development of both a local oil industry and the booming inCantaura O 10 20 30 40 50 Kilometers ï A JG Cachama Temblado GUANIPA Pariagu ?£ marcano MESA DE »¦ O A Tv E G X/\ URACOA ÁMamo\ Nuevo Marno IUDAD UÁYANA BOLIVAR \ Maturin* • Criollo town or city ] * Karinya community '"- Major highway ?.........\ Cachama land ? Figure 1. Location of Karinya settlements in the Mesas Orientales area of the eastern Llanos, Venezuela. Based on Schwerin (Footnote 4), Map L YEARBOOK · VOLUME 37 · 1975 25 dustrial complex at nearby Ciudad Bolivar and Ciudad Guayana (San Felix-Puerto Ordaz). The Karinya can be best described as semi-peasant, still retaining many aspects of their traditional social structure and economic system, including several distinctive forms of agriculture. An article by Fuchs on Karinya agriculture3 is mainly concerned with crops, with no mention of swamp drainage. A monograph by Schwerin on recent Karinya cultural change4 only briefly discusses agriculture , but it provides background information on the community of Cachama, in the state of Anzoátegui, which was chosen for the focus of this study. The Mesa-Morichal Landscape Much of the Orinco Llanos are low lying and poorly drained; however, there are extensive tablelands of Late Tertiary age north of the river forming what are often called the Llanos Altos (High Llanos). Their eastern section, or Mesas Orientales, begins 5 to 20 kilometers from the Orinoco and extends to the base of the Andes, with elevations from 100 to 300 meters above sea level. Numerous streams have incised this surface, leaving steep cliffs 20 to 30 meters high of sandstone and conglomerate, often with laterite faces (Figure 2...

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: